Tag Archives: peace

Gandhi’s Top 10 Fundamentals for Changing the World

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problem.”

“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.”

Mahatma Gandhi needs no long introduction. Everyone knows about the man who lead the Indian people to independence from British rule in 1947.

So let’s just move on to some of my favourite tips from Mahatma Gandhi.

1. Change yourself.

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world – that is the myth of the atomic age – as in being able to remake ourselves.”

If you change yourself you will change your world. If you change how you think then you will change how you feel and what actions you take. And so the world around you will change. Not only because you are now viewing your environment through new lenses of thoughts and emotions but also because the change within can allow you to take action in ways you wouldn’t have – or maybe even have thought about – while stuck in your old thought patterns.

And the problem with changing your outer world without changing yourself is that you will still be you when you reach that change you have strived for. You will still have your flaws, anger, negativity, self-sabotaging tendencies etc. intact.

And so in this new situation you will still not find what you hoped for since your mind is still seeping with that negative stuff. And if you get more without having some insight into and distance from your ego it may grow more powerful. Since your ego loves to divide things, to find enemies and to create separation it may start to try to create even more problems and conflicts in your life and world.

2. You are in control.

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”

What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you. There may be a “normal” or a common way to react to different things. But that’s mostly just all it is.

You can choose your own thoughts, reactions and emotions to pretty much everything. You don’t have to freak out, overreact of even react in a negative way. Perhaps not every time or instantly. Sometimes a knee-jerk reaction just goes off. Or an old thought habit kicks in.

And as you realize that no-one outside of yourself can actually control how you feel you can start to incorporate this thinking into your daily life and develop it as a thought habit. A habit that you can grow stronger and stronger over time. Doing this makes life a whole lot easier and more pleasurable.

3. Forgive and let it go.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.”

Fighting evil with evil won’t help anyone. And as said in the previous tip, you always choose how to react to something. When you can incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and others.

You realize that forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service. And spending your time in some negative memory won’t help you after you have learned the lessons you can learn from that experience. You’ll probably just cause yourself more suffering and paralyze yourself from taking action in this present moment.

If you don’t forgive then you let the past and another person to control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those bonds. And then you can focus totally on, for instance, the next point.

4. Without action you aren’t going anywhere.

“An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.”

Without taking action very little will be done. However, taking action can be hard and difficult. There can be much inner resistance.

And so you may resort to preaching, as Gandhi says. Or reading and studying endlessly. And feeling like you are moving forward. But getting little or no practical results in real life.

So, to really get where you want to go and to really understand yourself and your world you need to practice. Books can mostly just bring you knowledge. You have to take action and translate that knowledge into results and understanding.

You can check out a few effective tips to overcome this problem in How to Take More Action: 9 Powerful Tips. Or you can move on to the next point for more on the best tip for taking more action that I have found so far.

5. Take care of this moment.

“I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.”

The best way that I have found to overcome the inner resistance that often stops us from taking action is to stay in the present as much as possible and to be accepting.

Why? Well, when you are in the present moment you don’t worry about the next moment that you can’t control anyway. And the resistance to action that comes from you imagining negative future consequences – or reflecting on past failures – of your actions loses its power. And so it becomes easier to both take action and to keep your focus on this moment and perform better.

Have a look at 8 Ways to Return to the Present Moment for tips on how quickly step into the now. And remember that reconnecting with and staying in the now is a mental habit – a sort of muscle – that you grow. Over time it becomes more powerful and makes it easier to slip into the present moment.

6. Everyone is human.

“I claim to be a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow mortal. I own, however, that I have humility enough to confess my errors and to retrace my steps.”

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”

When you start to make myths out of people – even though they may have produced extraordinary results – you run the risk of becoming disconnected from them. You can start to feel like you could never achieve similar things that they did because they are so very different. So it’s important to keep in mind that everyone is just a human being no matter who they are.

And I think it’s important to remember that we are all human and prone to make mistakes. Holding people to unreasonable standards will only create more unnecessary conflicts in your world and negativity within you.

It’s also important to remember this to avoid falling into the pretty useless habit of beating yourself up over mistakes that you have made. And instead be able to see with clarity where you went wrong and what you can learn from your mistake. And then try again.

7. Persist.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Be persistent. In time the opposition around you will fade and fall away. And your inner resistance and self-sabotaging tendencies that want to hold you back and keep you like you have always been will grow weaker.

One reason Gandhi was so successful with his method of non-violence was because he and his followers were so persistent. They just didn’t give up.

Success or victory will seldom come as quickly as you would have liked it to. I think one of the reasons people don’t get what they want is simply because they give up too soon. The time they think an achievement will require isn’t the same amount of time it usually takes to achieve that goal. This faulty belief partly comes from the world we live in. A world full of magic pill solutions where advertising continually promises us that we can lose a lot of weight or earn a ton of money in just 30 days. You can read more about this in One Big Mistake a Whole Lot of People Make.

Finally, one useful tip to keep your persistence going is to listen to Gandhi’s third quote in this article and keep a sense of humor. It can lighten things up at the toughest of times.

8. See the good in people and help them.

“I look only to the good qualities of men. Not being faultless myself, I won’t presume to probe into the faults of others.”

“Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.”

“I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.”

There is pretty much always something good in people. And things that may not be so good. But you can choose what things to focus on. And if you want improvement then focusing on the good in people is a useful choice. It also makes life easier for you as your world and relationships become more pleasant and positive.

And when you see the good in people it becomes easier to motivate yourself to be of service to them. By being of service to other people, by giving them value you not only make their lives better. Over time you tend to get what you give. And the people you help may feel more inclined to help other people. And so you, together, create an upward spiral of positive change that grows and becomes stronger.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

“Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.”

I think that one of the best tips for improving your social skills is to behave in a congruent manner and communicate in an authentic way. People seem to really like authentic communication. And there is much inner enjoyment to be found when your thoughts, words and actions are aligned. You feel powerful and good about yourself.

When words and thoughts are aligned then that shows through in your communication. Because now you have your voice tonality and body language – some say they are over 90 percent of communication – in alignment with your words.

With these channels in alignment people tend to really listen to what you’re saying. You are communicating without incongruency, mixed messages or perhaps a sort of phoniness.

Also, if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you’re communicating then you start to hurt your own belief in what you can do. And other people’s belief in you too.

10. Continue to grow and evolve.

”Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.”

You can pretty much always improve your skills, habits or re-evaluate your evaluations. You can gain deeper understanding of yourself and the world.

Sure, you may look inconsistent or like you don’t know what you are doing from time to time. You may have trouble to act congruently or to communicate authentically. But if you don’t then you will, as Gandhi says, drive yourself into a false position. A place where you try to uphold or cling to your old views to appear consistent while you realise within that something is wrong. It’s not a fun place to be. To choose to grow and evolve is a happier and more useful path to take.

Pope Francis, in New Year’s address, calls for peace and justice

Jan. 1, 2014 at 10:13 AM

Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square, the Vatican, March 19, 2013. UPI/Stefano Spaziani

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VATICAN CITY, Jan. 1 (UPI) — Pope Francis, during his New Year’s address Wednesday to tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square, called on people to build a more just world.The pope said he hopes the new year will bring peace, justice and liberty to the world, Vatican Radio reported.

“Peace requires the force of meekness, the force of nonviolence of truth and of love,” he said.

He noted the church is celebrating the feast of Mary and the World Day of Peace Wednesday.

He called for people to acknowledge violence and to work toward building a just society during his address, titled “Fraternity: the Foundation and Pathway to Peace.”

The pope deviated from his prepared speech and commented on a letter he recently received, the report said. He said the writer wanted to know: “What has happened in the hearts of men, in the heart of humanity? It is time to stop. It is time to stop.”

Holy Relationships

Here is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s description of the deep nature of relationship between ourselves and our fellow human beings: “It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”

If you desire peace for others, you’ll receive it. If you want others to feel loved, you’ll be the recipient of love. If you see only beauty and worthiness in others, you’ll have the same returned to you. You’ll only give away what you have in your heart, and attract what you’re giving away. Your impact on others—whether it be strangers, family members, co-workers, or neighbors—is evidence of the strength of your connection to Source. Think of your relationships in terms of holy or unholy.

Holy relationships facilitate the power of your divine connection at a high energy level for everyone involved. Unholy relationships keep the energy at the lower, slower levels for all concerned. You’ll know your own potential for higher love when you start seeing the perfection in all relationships. When you recognize others’ holiness, you’ll treat them as expressions of the divine nature we all share and you’ll want nothing from them. The irony is that they become co-creators manifesting all your desires. Want nothing from them, demand nothing from them, have no expectations for them, and they’ll return this kindness. Demand from them, insist that they please you, judge them as inferior, and see them as servants, and you’ll receive the same. It is in your best interest to be acutely aware of what you truly want for others, and to know whether you’re in a holy or an unholy relationship with every person you’re involved with.

One truth I’ve recognized during the years of my own growth is that it’s impossible to know my own connection to Source if I’m unable to see and honor that same connection in others. The ability to see yourself as an expression of the Divine and to see yourself in all of humanity is a characteristic of the holy relationship. It’s the ability to celebrate and honor in others the place where we’re all one.

Who Are You When Alone?

Self-creation is a Holy Experience. It is sacred. It is you, deciding Who You Are. What do you think of yourself in the morning? First thing in the morning, what is your idea about yourself? How about the last thing at night? What is your final assessment of Self just before falling asleep?

This is you, deciding about you. Some people call it “wrestling with your conscience.”

In the quiet moments of your day, what do you think and do? When you are with your Self and no one else, how does life proceed for you? Do you eat well, or do you “sneak” a treat that you would not have if someone were watching?

Do you meditate every morning, or only the mornings that another is there? Do you exercise each day, or only on the days that another reminds you, cajoles you, shames you into it? Who are you when you are alone?

Are you reconciled with your Self? When you talk to your Self, in your mind or even out loud, is your Self happy with you? How do you make the Self happy? How do you bring the Self joy? The answer to these questions says a great deal about you.

From where does your joy originate? Is it from something exterior to you, or from something interior? Is it from something you are doing, or something you are being?

And how do you bring your Self peace?

Finally: who do you think you are, anyway…?

And we will continue our explorations of all of this here next week. Until then…

by: Shepard Fairey

Street Art and Politics in Copenhagen

Posted: 8/14/11 09:38 PM ET

Photo by Jon Furlong

In late July, I began a gallery project and series of street murals in Copenhagen. On Aug. 1,POLITIKEN newspaper published an inaccurate story reporting that I was commissioned and paid by the city of Copenhagen to execute the mural they featured in their article. The mural location in question had a controversial history of clash between the city and the supporters and inhabitants of the Youth House formerly located there. In spite of efforts by myself, my gallery, and the Youth House, to correct the record, media outlets continued to perpetuate the misconception that I had been hired or at least prompted by the city to create my mural at the former Youth House location. An unfortunate chain reaction of events took place that I believe may have been, at least in part, catalyzed by media misinformation that continues to circulate. Below is my attempt to thoroughly illuminate my experience in Copenhagen.

Most of my Copenhagen experience was peace and love. Here I’ll cover the aspects that weren’t peace and love.

As a preface, I should mention that, being a street artist, I am very well aware of the contentious nature of the street art/graffiti world. I think street art is one of the most democratic, accessible, empowering, and inspiring art forms there is. To be a street artist, you don’t need permission, just courage and motivation. Street art also is an outlet for the most competitive, frustrated, anarchic, and sometimes, downright barbarically hostile people. These traits may be prominent in the street art/graff community, but certainly are not relegated to it.

The Dalai Lama speaks to reporters outside the White House in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010, following a meeting with President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

07/15/11 06:12 PM ET

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has invited the Dalai Lama to the White House Saturday, making time for the Tibetan spiritual leader who is in Washington for an 11-day Buddhist ritual.

The president last met with the Nobel Peace laureate in February 2010, infuriating Chinese officials. China accuses the Dalai Lama of pushing for Tibetan independence.

Employing a low-key approach, the White House has set the meeting in the White House Map Room, not the Oval Office, which is reserved for visiting heads of state. The White House is keeping the meeting closed to the news media, as it did last year.

A White House official says Obama will urge that representatives of the Dalai Lama be allowed to engage with Chinese authorities and will call for the preservation of Tibetan culture.

Replacing Our ‘War Rooms’ with ‘Peace Rooms’

Evolution is evolving from unconscious chance to conscious choice. We are entering the first age of conscious evolution.

Why? Because we obviously affect our own evolution by all the choices we make — from the food we eat, the number of babies we have, the cars we drive and the weapons we build.

Humans have no experience at being responsible for global change at this level. We are facing, as Bruce Lipton and Deepak Chopra recently wrote, the possibility of the collapse of our life support system. Or, I believe, the emergence of something new, something better than we have ever known before.

Dalai Lama To Host Washington D.C. Peace Festival In July

WASHINGTON (RNS) The Dalai Lama will visit Washington next month for an 11-day peace rally that is being billed as “the largest gathering for world peace in history.”

The July 6-16 “Kalachakra for World Peace” aims to “amplify the profound, unshakable commitment of (the Dalai Lama) to values such as love, compassion, wisdom and interfaith harmony,” according to publicity materials.